


The Witch and the Vampire

by Silberias



Category: The Vampire Diaries - L. J. Smith
Genre: F/M, Gen, I do like that the TV show decided to change the whole crew from being whitey mcwhitefaces, I never got into the TV show or the more recent novels, One Shot Collection, and the actress they chose for Bonnie was perfect for the part I'm sorry but she was, but one of my first trash crackfic ships was Bonnie and Damon, look away, look away dear child, these are all very old writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 04:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16360400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: What Bonnie wants, Bonnie gets. /transferred from my ff.net profile





	1. Telephone

**Author's Note:**

> These Bonnie/Damon little stories are going to get posted into one single story of one-shots. Bear with me please!
> 
> Chapter 1: What Bonnie wants is a way to get in contact with Damon after the events of the fourth book. What Bonnie wants, Bonnie gets.

Bonnie meticulously scoured the area where Damon had fallen the previous evening. She was betting—hoping really—that no breezes had disturbed the place where he had been fried like a French fry—or rather, Italian fry—by Klaus. He had hopefully left some trace of himself there, and that trace was the most Bonnie was hoping for. If she had some of Damon--a hair, an eyelash, a fingernail--wshe could summon him at any time if she so wished. Which she figured would be a highly useful thing to have at her disposal, in the future.

The clearing was musty with the smell of sodden wood-fire, but that was to be expected because of the Heaven-sent rain from last night. Bonnie found she quite liked the smell. It reminded her of the hyper-tense moments outside of Vickie Bennett's window when Damon had tried to kiss her. Bonnie knew there was no reason to associate the two, but somehow her brain made the connection and she let it be.

However, so absorbed was she in her work that she missed the whisper of wings in the air and the gentle thuds of two boot-clad feet hitting the ground shortly thereafter. Bonnie didn't notice the other presence until a long fingered hand appeared in her line of sight—and caught between those long fingers were a few locks of straight, dark hair.


	2. Belief and Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie's friends never trusted in her abilities or believed in her strength like Damon did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Old notes from the original posting on ff.net: So I noticed that one of my Bonnie/Damon (Bamon is a ridiculous ship name, I'm sorry to be so frank) fics (Us and Them, I think) was added to a C2 and I hadn't noticed before. So I wrote out a tiny little interpretation of their relationship, the theories I have about it transferred to a story of some sort. I haven't read the new books, I refuse to actually since it seems like everything I loved about the original series is being bastardized for the sake of more money, so this fic isn't influenced by those at all. But enough about that. The reason I ship Bonnie/Damon is because Bonnie is an amazing character who learns to be strong, and along that journey there is Damon who actually believes in her. Notice that? Damon actually takes the time to believe in and trust Bonnie, even when the rest of her friends don't.

It was Damon who helped her with claiming her inheritance as a witch. She refused to take his money to get to Europe early on, but she gladly took the books and scrolls he sent to her in specially packed boxes. It was Damon who offered to help her translate some of the more ancient texts.

It was Damon who trusted her to know her limits while at the same time helping her to extend those limits. It was Damon who was not freaked out by the necessity of blood in some of her rituals, and it was Damon who understood that not all of that blood was _hers_ to be ritualizing with. It was Damon who didn't judge her for her nature and her magic.

It was Damon who bought her to Europe for a year, to live in the various houses he owned around the continent, and it was Damon who bought her a car—a beautiful, thrumming machine—and taught her how to drive it. It was Damon who grinned wide and fierce when she cornered perfectly on his favorite switchback outside of Florence. It was Damon who laughed like a madman whenever she nearly wrecked it, promising with that laughter to save her and to buy her a new car if she ever _did_ wreck it.

It was Damon who held her to keep her awake and calm on the nights when the film between worlds was thinnest during various parts of the year. It was Damon who checked on her from time to time during those days, his voice groggy on the cellphone as he tried to stay awake after sunrise. It was Damon who would shake her out of it the few times she was possessed by someone against her will.

It was Damon who let her live her life without telling her what to do with it. It was Damon who believed in her and trusted her, and when she was twenty three and Matt called up out of the blue to ask her out, it was Damon who answered the phone. He was just wiping his lower lip clean, his thumb stained crimson. It was Damon who put Bonnie into an early grave, and it was Damon who brought her out of it too a few days after her "funeral." It was Damon who taught her how to hunt, and it was Damon who chucked her chin up and smiled as he promised to always be there for her.


	3. Grandam's Prophecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie, with minor help from her sister, rescues Damon certain death. Damon returns the favor. Takes place after undefined backstory, slightly OOC Damon, one-shot, mostly fluffy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One-shot involving Bonnie & Damon several days after the last scene in "Dark Reunion." Spurred by some random thought in my mind about 2 years ago, I promptly wrote it out in Word and just as promptly forgot it. But I decided after a few tweaks it was good enough for public presentation.
> 
> We all need a little BonniexDamon fluff now and then

"You're an idiot, you know that right?" She said harshly as she helped him up, taking stock of his injuries. Damon grated his teeth together and said, "I didn't know that, I merely knew I was mad."

 

"Well, we're not going to be able to fix you at anywhere normal," her sister Mary said as the two helped him stumble through the wood.

"I can fix myself, thank you very much."

"Not with a Drainer in you, Damon," Bonnie said logically. So _that_ was what had hit him.

"Let me go get my first aid kit and I'll see what I can do with him." Mary said and she left Damon leaning on Bonnie. Bonnie let him down gently onto the forest floor and sat his head on her lap. Damon wished she hadn't, he was burning up inside from hunger.

"What happened?" Damon opened his eyes to look up into hers, wishing that he didn't have to look at her throat in the process.

"Flying along, happily humming some pop song I heard in the capitol, and then swish-cry-fall-terror-impact-unconsciousness-waking up-agony-hunger-and a bit more agony thrown in for effect. That is my life in the last three days." Bonnie flinched when she heard the time span.

"Couldn't you have called an animal to eat?" Damon let his expression tell her the answer.

"Oh. You're…weak."

"I'm a human who is going to live forever with long pointy teeth, that's what I am right now. Of course, the forever part may be a little shorter, as I'm about to burn out." Damon felt his heart feebly respond to the adrenaline that accompanied death. He was afraid, and Bonnie felt it.

"Do…" Bonnie stopped. "Does it hurt…just…?" Damon moved his head a little so that she was not quite so upside down.

"If both are willing, no. If one isn't it will hurt no matter what." Bonnie nodded and Damon knew what she was going to do as she began to shift her position.

As he cupped her neck with one hand and put the other on her waist, Damon wondered how he was to thank her. She was saving his life by giving him hers, which was as high a priced gift as most humans could give.

She tensed slightly as her skin gave way under his teeth, but relaxed as he cradled her and she lost blood. Damon was amazed at how sweet it was, almost richer than vampire blood. He ignored the crackle of leaves as her sister returned, and the surprised or horrified gasp Mary gave at the sight of them. He ignored them because he was healing, and he knew when to stop himself. He felt his system dissolve the conjured arrow head that had been meant to end his life, and he detached himself from Bonnie.

"Thank you," he whispered against her throat. He let his senses roam a little and found that Mary had returned to the car. That was good; the older sister did not want to see what he was going to do.

"Will you live Damon?"

"Yes, but I have to repay you. You've saved my life twice now, and I've barely done anything for you, besides frighten you and drink your blood." Damon lifted his head to look at her, gauging her disposition. She caught the look.

"It's alright; I mean…you haven't hurt me or anything."

"I believe I will give you my blood, if you want it." He said evenly. Shock, it seemed, robbed her of speech, making Damon add, "I do love you, or else you would be getting something else of less value to you. If I give you my blood, Bonnie, I can't hide from you. You can call me to your side at any moment, and I will come. But only if you want it." Bonnie swallowed thickly, her eyes flickering over his face. He saw the answer in her eyes, but kept himself still. He wanted to see or hear her say it. Bonnie opened her mouth and seemed to try to speak, but couldn't. In the end, she merely nodded.

The cut didn't hurt him, it was nothing. But to have Bonnie pressed up against him, her lips on his throat, that was bliss so intense it was near the agony he had experienced only hours before.

After a time, Damon gently pushed her away from the wound and moved her so that he could cradle her in his arms. Her sister returned, and found them that way. Mary moved with caution and wariness in her manner. Damon knew that they were for him, because Mary knew how dangerous he could be at times.

"What have you done?" She asked quietly as Bonnie dozed.

"She has saved my brother's life pretty much three times, and my own twice. I gave her my blood, so that at any time she needs me, she can call me." Mary's face twisted in disgust.

"Well what would you have me do Mary? Send her a thank you note? A bouquet of white roses? What else can you give someone who's saved your life but to save theirs?"

"You might have made her like you." Mary said coldly.

"If I have, I certainly didn't mean to. Besides, do you think I would make her into a vampire and then _abandon_ her?"

"From some of the stories I have heard Stefan tell, yes."

"My brother…listens to the horrible things the weaker vampires of Europe have to say about me. They say I am a madman, I should be killed, I am dangerous for the community, and I kill people on a whim. These things and more. Less than half I have committed in my lifetime, and barely any in the last century. I…" Damon didn't finish the sentence, he was starting to rant and he knew it.

"Alright, I hear what you are saying. But do you think that with those kinds of things floating around you that I want to leave my baby sister alone with you? Would you have left Stefan…never mind, you probably would have." Damon checked the urge to shout when he replied:

"I didn't hate him when we were children Mary McCullough." Mary just shook her head.

"Alright, you carry her back to the car," she moved to look into her sister's face. Damon hoped that she noted the calm and happiness on Bonnie's face. Mary turned away and began walking after only a moment.

Though Mary did not want to, she brought Damon and Bonnie to Bonnie's room in the boardinghouse. Damon could tell that Mary wanted Bonnie under her nose, but, she related to him, Bonnie had been thrown out of their parents' home because of her magic. Damon had answered her glares coldly. She had no reason to hate him: he had never touched her, her parents, and shown a control that was foreign to even himself when it came to her sister.

When they had entered the room, Mary had begun hovering over Bonnie. Damon could barely stand it. There was no reason to linger there with Bonnie; Damon would make sure that she was seen to. Mary would not take no for answer and Damon eventually put the thought into her mind to make her leave.

"Damon?" He turned from his contemplation of the door through which Bonnie's bed was. It was Stefan, concern evident on his features.

"Hello Stefan," he said blankly. He knew that to get rid of his brother he needed to unnerve him and being polite was the most likely way to throw his brother.

"I…felt you use your power to get rid of…Mary I think. Is everything alright?" Damon looked up into his younger brother's face. For over five hundred years it had maintained its innocent stubbornness, the innate ability to be completely honest with anyone after a time, the need to care about something. Damon had always wondered how Stefan's attitude had survived the countless centuries of European wars, bloodshed, strife, everything that made the mish-mashed continent what it was. If Damon was to tell anyone, he would tell Stefan. He was not exactly sure why, it just seemed that Stefan was the most likely person to keep a secret or a confidence.

"Yes, it was Mary. She…has heard some stories, maybe from you, maybe not, and she seems to think…that I am out to murder her little sister. She's heard things, I think, that would keep you or I awake at our time of sleeping…things that good old Robespierre wouldn't have thought of…" He spared a glance towards Bonnie's door.

"She trusts me, Stefan," he said, nodding toward the door, "she…understands, in some ways. I do not think that she will ever understand all of it, for she is only, what? Seventeen, eighteen years old?"

"I believe she turned nineteen two months ago…you…" Stefan broke off, sensing that he was in delicate territory. Damon was merely silent.

"You love her, don't you?"

"Is never wishing her harm, wishing she never have to see all of the hurt in the world, is that love? Never to have her see someone dying before her while she can do nothing about it, is that love? Wishing that every moment that she sighs, it is a sigh of happiness or contentment? Wanting to see her smile because of…anything, is that love? Wanting to show her all of the good in the world?"

"Don't kill me, Brother, but what do you know of the good of the world?"

"If I have seen all the bad, everything else must be good." Stefan smiled in his wan way.

"That…is one of the best ways I have heard it put."

"You know, they don't call me the mad poet in Valencia for nothing, Brother."

Hours later, near dawn, Damon was seated by Bonnie's bed. She was nowhere near awake, but seeing humans slowly wake by their own clock had always fascinated Damon. She had moved in the night from lying on her back the way he had set her down to on her side. As he watched her, she lifted a sleeping hand to the wounds in her throat. He held his breath as the hand stilled and a smile seemed to creep onto Bonnie's sleeping face. Damon allowed his eyes to crinkle with his own repressed smile.

For another half hour, Damon sat in silent stillness, watching the tiny signs that showed how the human body revved up for another day. When Bonnie finally opened her eyes and began to sit up, Damon was ready to pick her up and toss her in the air and catch her.

"Did I live?" She asked as she slowly sat up and touched the marks on her neck.

"For all human purposes you did. Your sister will be relieved."

"Mary? Why? Did she think that you would change me on a whim?"

"Quite frankly, yes."

"Well, you can change me right now, and she'll get over it!" Bonnie stated vehemently. Something inside Damon jumped into life. He had wanted to so badly the night before, and here she was saying that her sister would get over it…Damon slapped the thoughts away before they could form any longer.

Bonnie had sobered also.

"Will you change me?" Damon's head jerked towards hers.

"If you want me to. If you want to remain human for the rest of your life, I will see to it that you do. Almost anything, I would do for you."

"What if I told you that I hated you and I never wanted to see you again?"

"Do you hate me?"

"No."

"If you did, I would do that too…with much remorse and not a few unkind thoughts." How had they gotten here? Damon wondered. What was she getting at?

"Damon…did you ever, back then, did you ever listen to what we said?"

"Not really, some things I did, but not many."

"Once I was telling Elena and Meredith that my grandmother had predicted that I was going to die young, I don't know if it was because of that, like a placebo or something, but…the doctors say I just wasn't right from the beginning, and…"

"I know, my love, I know." Reaching to her, Damon held her closely. He had felt it in her blood.

"I don't want to die, Damon," she whispered as he adjusted her on his lap.

"Most people don't, Bonnie," he conjured a small blade from air and set it on the bed where he could reach it. He then turned to her.

"Are you completely sure? I will teach you how to survive, and after that, anything else you wish to learn. But to live you will have to drink blood, human or otherwise, you will have to watch your friends age as you don't. It is a very hard life to live…"

"Yes. As long as you don't teach me to kill…or, not at first," Bonnie reached around her neck and pulled back her hair.

Damon did not go to her throat first. There was plenty of time for that, but her lips would only be human for a little while longer. Finally he found himself softly kissing her throat, pressing his lips against the soft skin there. Gently he let his teeth sink into her skin, through the older openings.

Some time later, Damon let Bonnie away from a cut in his own throat. She was barely conscious, but as her eyelids fluttered, she smiled at him with bloodstained teeth. Damon smiled back and induced sleep to her mind.

When she awoke, Bonnie was disoriented, but Damon helped her through it, and when she was back to normal, she trailed him constantly, so that Damon had finally found a stone similar to his so that she was protected from the sun. Damon showed her everything she needed, and some that she didn't, but she learned it all. For a few days he slept on the tiny couch that she had in her rooms, and then Mrs. Flowers told him to get his own room or start sleeping in a proper bed. He had then begun sleeping in the room across the hall from Bonnie's.

They told no one of what they had done. Stefan and Elena probably suspected, since that was their nature, and maybe Matt as well, but Damon kept Bonnie's new secret to only himself. Damon worried what her sister would say, because she was the most likely to notice a change in Bonnie.

"Damon?" Damon opened his eyes from sleep at the sound of her voice.

"I'm up. What are we—" Bonnie was right beside his bed, and pushed him back down when he tried to sit up. Then she sat on the edge. She was silent, the barest of movements were her breathing and flickering eyes.

"Wha—" The abrupt ceasing of movement made him stop.

"It's cold in that room." She finally said.

"You can—" She turned and put a finger to his lips.

"It's cold, Damon. There is nothing in there except me, and when I'm not with you, I'm cold. Right now, I feel alive. I feel strong and capable, but when I'm alone in that room, I look at the stone you found me, and I think. And I think that I shouldn't be left alone to think when I am this new at being a vampire. I don't want to spend every night alone, Damon." Damon thought his heart was going to stop. She wanted…not that yet, but company. Yes, he could handle company.

The next morning, Damon lay still, trying not to wake her. He was overwhelmed by the fact that even a decade before he would have never given her a second glance. Well, he thought, if it was during my time I would have.


	4. Night Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She looked for eyes the color of the night, not windows of a soul.

Damon's night black eyes and night black hair couldn't have always been as such, Bonnie was nearly sure of it. Yes, he had had black hair, but his hair behaved as though it were a physical manifestation of his personality—and his eyes, well, if you asked Stefan or Elena, his eyes were manifestations of his soul. Which was exactly why Bonnie was sure that at some point, Damon had had dark, dark brown eyes.

She sought his eyes in every stranger she met—pillaging the thoughts from the top of their head to find Damon. Damon was not one to be forgotten—he had enough vanity to not erase his physical form from the memory of a human. It was one of the things which made others regard him as evil. Bonnie, however, wanted to find him. She would not be the meek little thing which Matt wanted, nor did she want the two point two kids that Matt wanted either. Bonnie wanted adventure—darkness—and she knew just the man to give it to her.


	5. Us and Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie's deathbed is in his arms, and on his terms. Damon would have it no other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A four chapter story posted as a one-shot here. All the bad writing. All of it.

She is screaming when he bursts through the window, coming up like death behind her attacker. Grasping hands hold firm, one upon the shoulder and the other taking hold of hair close to the scalp—a heart stopping breaking and tearing sound fills the air—and her screams increase in volume as the body fell and the head remains aloft.

Silence permeats the blood splattered room, however, when he eases her into unconsciousness so that he can deal with the still conscious head in his hand.

"I've told you all before, she is mine and she is not for hunting."

After exploding the head, he gently picks her up and takes her to Meredith's so that he can clean up her bedroom.

"Bonnie?" his clean, damp fingertips caress her face to wake her.

"Yes?"

"You did the right thing, precious, he would have killed you."

"You killed him, though."

"Yes, but I've told them over and over again that you're mine—mine to drink from, mine to toy with if I choose, and mine to kill if it's ever decided that you must die. They are not to touch you, and those who don't believe me must meet similar ends to that one. It's a fact."

"To you," she murmurs, turning her head away from him.

Damon leans forward to press a kiss to her shoulder, not pushing the issue with her, and leaves. She is weak and doesn't need him to overly excite her by arguing with her.

* * *

He finds her standing in the sun. It's a bright day, and she's long since left the quiet bench beneath dappled sunlit shadows. It hurts his eyes, but he bares it for her. Her form, always slight and pliant and—to him—sexy, seems translucent. Her body is not beautifully thin, and her form is not beautifully curvaceous. This particular human being is dying, and is not far from the end.  


In much the same way as light groping in public, to humans, is slightly erotic, taking a tiny nibble at her bare throat in full sunlight nearly undoes him. In the past few hundred years, Damon has learned to appreciate every type, age, and health of blood. The blood of the dying has always fascinated him, for the slight watering of the mouth for more, long after all traces have been swallowed and cleaned from his gums, is tantalizing. Hers tastes divine—there is a reason vampires have hunted her extensively in the past few years…despite his repeated dismantling of their skulls to prove his claim on her.

Bonnie is dying of grief, although none but he will tell her that as he whispers the truth to her now. The loss of friends, in response to her druidism, and the loss of innocence by way of life experience have conspired to stress her weak heart and immune system past the brink. Damon stands behind and supports her as he muses on his plan to aid her—absently nuzzling and licking the seeping wound on her neck.

"Precious, will you let me save you?" her eyes are closed against the bright sunlight, her head resting lifelessly against his shoulder, and he checks to see if she is still conscious.

"How are you going to save me from myself, Damon? Using your method I will look and feel like this forever," she murmurs.

"First I give you enough blood to begin to recover your strength, and when you are recovered, I will change you and take you far away from all of these memories. It's best for someone like you to have a change of scenery at a time like this."

"Can't you take me away and then work your magic?" her voice is soft, intermittent. It's only because she thinks the words as she speaks that he hears the entire sentence at all.

"Not for a short while, at the very least, cara, you are far too weak to do any sort of travelling" he says gently into her ear as he hoists her up and starts walking out of the sunlight and into the shadows of the forest.

* * *

Damon takes her Richmond, a bigger city which is easier to blend into. It's the bigger cities that people don't notice the pale young man and the withered redhead he supports—that boy is pale from taking care of a dying friend, they reason, and move on with their lives. Humans were a superior species, sometimes, to vampires. If one spoke to a biologist this would be because vampires did not reproduce sexually—in the biological sense—and humans did. No, to Damon, humans had a modicum of technical superiority because they cared for others of their species—it was something he had found they couldn't repress easily. Vampires rarely cared for the "greater good," of their kind, usually only for one or two for their entire lifetimes.

By this time she would have faded and died, but Damon religiously gives her sips of his blood in order to prolong her life—sometimes secretly stashed in a cup of red wine, otherwise worked into the times he gives in and kisses her for hours on end. He also feeds her constantly, taking her to fancy restaurants—not to show off, but for the rich food and tiny portion sizes.

Her body begins to gain definition again.

In the evenings she can't sleep due to the growing presence of vampiric blood in her body, and he allows her to stay up with him for as long as she wants or can. He never lets her watch the local news, however, because her family and friends have reported her as missing—likely kidnapped. Snatched in broad daylight from a park frequented by mothers and young children. Her face on the television is splashed on every channel as the ethereally beautiful Elena and the dark eyed Meredith plead for her safe return.

Damon, if Bonnie is sleeping, watches the news and smiles into Bonnie's hair—and says to the faces in the screen, " _No_."

* * *

 

Despite his lacing of her wine and other things, he had yet to take more than a mouthful of her blood. It made him giddy, enhancing the world around him and bringing every edge into sharp detail. It was seeing the world in such definition that it was a near hallucination. Changing her would have been very difficult for any other vampire than himself. Vampires who succumbed to that giddiness killed the human more often than not—which was why there were so few of her kind that made the change.

The day was, taking the play farther than he normally did, painfully sunny. It was agony on his eyes, even with the expensive double coated sunglasses he typically wore. It suited his purposes perfectly. She would wake up at just twilight—enough time to assess her mental state, for the sun to set, and to take her on her first hunt.

"You're going to do it today aren't you?" she'd asked. Her voice sounded like singing.

He didn't veer from his course, made no answer—he packed a picnic basket with a dagger and forgot the silverware, a silver ring with a lapis stone instead of napkins, a thick blanket instead of a table cloth.

* * *

It's like watching a kitten, blue eyes barely unstuck, amble in a new world. That world has always been there, the kitten knows instinctively, but has never been visible before. The little nest he's made for the two of them—somewhere where he can rest and where she can be safe—hasn't changed a whit since the day before, the week before, a year. But she has opened her eyes—they've come unstuck, wide and uncertain.

He wouldn't have changed her if she hadn't been able to handle it. It's something he knew she was ready for—he has nursed her wounds, physical and mental, and her singed whiskers have re-grown stronger and in abundance. Bonnie is a new vampire, but she is still Bonnie—with eyes pried open by one who loves her.

Damon lets her watch the news now—the news shows have passed over the one-year disappearance of a young woman from Fell's Church. And they are in New York, anyway. He played it safe, however, and waited it out. He's not stupid or naïve enough to believe that she would stay with him if her friends thought she'd been kidnapped.

She would have come back, of course, but Damon didn't want her to leave in the first place. There was always a small thin chance—like seeing Jesus on CNN—and Damon hated small thin chances.

The breath had left her body so easily—it had wanted to escape for so long, even as he'd helped her back to health he could hear a rattle no medical science would ever hear. Mortals breathed that rattle out for the rest of their lives after they'd come so close to death—regardless of what that death would have been. It was the memory of death, of what it might have felt like, of the end of suffering. It made any subsequent near-hits that much more likely to happen.

Did dating a vampire count as a near-hit or a near-miss? Damon didn't trouble himself, it wasn't his department to think of things like that. That was Stefan's calling, and there was a reason it was.

Damon didn't dare leave the continent with her in such a state, newly changed, just as he couldn't have left for Europe with a mortal-Bonnie in tow—he'd had to change her in order to get her in a place where he _could_ get her off the continent. It was a vicious cycle. He had to teach her how to be a vampire and to be herself—not get lost in the emotion of it like Stefan did. There was plenty of time for emotion, it came with living forever, but it meant that he couldn't let her wallow in it.

Not that she wallowed—she was like a weeks-old kitten. She gamboled on tottering feet, pretended to bite and scratch, and curled up purringly happy—that's what Bonnie did.

* * *

The first time she sees a mirror—a bona fide mirror—since her change is when he takes her to "obtain" a proper falsified passport. They can't have Bonnie McCullough traipsing around Europe (If Damon were solo, he'd simply fly, but Bonnie is a decade away from that ability, despite how fast she's learning), and so they get a Gwyneth Woods to do it for her.

The mirror is small, a foot-by-foot affair. No bigger than it needs to be, as it's just to make sure you don't have spinach in your teeth for the passport photo. The scratches on the surface tell it's age, since before anyone besides Damon was born—sixties at the youngest.

Bonnie had previously only caught glimpses of herself reflected in nighttime sights like glass windows and still water (Damon envied her unease as she crossed running water, he only had a few inter-continental trips left in him it disturbed him so). Her hair was dulled and darkened in these reflections, her pallor increased because of the night, her eyes black.

But not so now.

It's six thirty at night—more than an hour after quitting time at the official office, in it's own wing to the side of the post office. The lights shine haggard shadows into Damon's face—it's not easy to train a fledgling such as her, and he can see why creators throughout history often left their progeny after a matter of weeks—but her face is clear and full, her cheeks tinted the barest rose from the generous donation of the banker at sunset.

She's obviously shocked at her own appearance.

Her hair has changed so slowly that only Damon has noticed—it started when he started adding blood to her diet almost a year ago, he only knows because when he looks back on his memories of her those red waves were deliciously carrot colored. Now they shone a lively cherry, the blonde highlights given by the sun having given way to a darkness not to blame only on lack of sunlight.

Damon knows this is because of the vampire in her, just as his own hair is because of the vampire in him. It was the mutation, virus, whatever he called it that particular Tuesday—it changed subtle things, to self-identify to the world. Like a snake with markings for poison—If red touches black you're an okay Jack, if red touches yellow you're a deadly fellow.

She doesn't turn and stare at him accusingly—he has no use for mirrors and doesn't keep them—but her wonder is obvious. Bonnie McCullough, witch, was a bona fide vampire complete with otherworldly looks of extreme colors and dazzling textures. Her hair, brushed until it gleamed, framed that heart shaped face—out from which stared two dancing brown eyes, the pupils too large to be human.

"Your passport should be done in a few weeks, Ms. Woods," the teller's voice, dreamy and content with Damon's hypnosis, shoots through the air in a monotone. Bonnie grins, her canines just threatening to grow, before Damon shakes his head. This was the Bonnie who Matt would have killed—by accident, of course, as disbelief is always an accident—and his brother and Elena would have trampled, and the moment her life had left her body, she was all _his._

* * *

 

There was a modern ballad on the radio—Damon could hear it blaring in tiny speakers from the first floor of the building, drifting up six flights of stairs to the roof access he was situated on. It was about a tragic youth—and a wall of sound to separate. Struggling for reality. At least that's what the ballad termed it—and that was only what Damon could hear. He wanted to dance to it—but that wasn't an option right now.

Bonnie, draped over his shoulder and enchanted with the parade below, had left the radio on again in their apartment. It wasn't really their apartment—more the apartment of a well-to-do bachelor lawyer who never noticed his two roommates. Damon was training Bonnie by having her change how the man perceived them—Damon took care of the rest of the tenants who might see the odd comings and goings of two wan young people.

It was nearly time, he knew, his hand pressed over hers over his collarbone. Stefan was going to look up from the crowd on the street in a minute or so—when the psychic energy of the humans pressed around him had quieted. Elena wouldn't think to look until Stefan gasped—the flurry of red curls cascading over the ledge and two pale faces emerging out of the darkness would be hard to miss with a vampire's eyes.

Bonnie giggled.

Damon had chosen her favorite city in the UK for this reunion—he'd fallen severely ill during the plane trip nearly a decade before, and had decided to remain confined to Europe, Asia, and Africa rather than endure that pain again. Bath was a nice sort of place—quaint and boring. On every trip to Britain he thanked human engineering and the Chunnel.

"We just _have_ to go, Damon. It's a celebration of Jane Austen, and there will be movies and reenactments and it will be just dreadful and romantic." Damon had fiercely tamped down on the urge to hiss in frustration at her—that was something he'd only just barely trained her out of, if barely counted as eight years ago, and he didn't of all things want a relapse in her by doing it himself.

The ease at which his Bonnie, with the skill of a mostly grown (but not) tabby cat—slitted eyes open wide into ovals so rounded they were nearly circular; hardened dagger claws tucked softly and sweetly into silent feet—inserted the suggestions into the minds of her former friends, had pride swelling up in him as an embarrassing show of affection. He'd caught a poetic looking street performer just for her as a reward and pat on the back.

"Elena—Bo—Damon—L'k!" Stefan's strangled panic rose only barely above the clutter of machinated noise—but both Damon and Bonnie caught it.

"He's gonna have a fit, Damon, look," Bonnie pointed with the hand not captured by Damon. She didn't point at Stefan, but at Matt. Matt who stood with shoulders tensed, human anger and jealousy convincing his muscles of the possibility of the six storey climb—Matt whose eyes burned with hatred, betrayal, and another vaguely lost notion. Of course that was only Damon projecting those feelings on the man—he had no way of knowing for sure without looking…

Ah, yes, indeed, his affinity for emotion was dead on.

"Don't kill him, Damon, he'll haunt you _forever_ ," Bonnie whispered into his ear, lips brushing the cartilage with every syllable, and Damon's own shoulders relaxed. He didn't need jealousy to tell him what he was and wasn't capable of. Bonnie's laughing warning also rung true—she was psychic after all. And she'd grown strong under his care of her and from his care about her.

Exponentially so.

* * *

 

Elena's accusing eyes rarely accomplished what she probably wanted them to do. Luckily for her she had caught one of the most obliging and weak-willed vampires to have ever lived, and she held him under her thrall easily. She and Stefan were happy—and Damon couldn't laugh his way into having either of them understand that Bonnie had him under that same thrall. No—most definitely not—not the same thrall, he'd be damned again if he were as lovesick and idiotic as his saintly brother.

Damon couldn't—and moreover wouldn't—explain to them: a vicious desire to have her and protect her from death, a want so deep and painful that at turns he'd hated her for it and so strong that he'd killed her to fulfill it. Bonnie was hurt by the group's inability to accept that Damon wasn't going to be loving and attentive in the same way that Alaric was to Meredith or Stefan was to Elena. She didn't show that hurt—but Damon knew, and it made him angry.

"We thought you'd killed yourself—" "You left so suddenly, without any note. We…" "I blamed myself, I," "She and I fought over whether we had driven you away," "we thought you were dead."

Damon coolly observed their self-centered conversation, swirling around Bonnie like an emptying toilet—or a whirlpool, if he were being poetic and not a misanthrope. As her eyes misted over, glassy and distant—Damon-like—he watched as she cried vampire tears that Stefan never knew how to cry (he had clung to his humanity for so long that he didn't know how to truly be a vampire properly). Damon was about to grab her and make a run for it—it had worked in years past, why not now?—when Matt brought up the one subject he should have known not to.

"But don't you know he's a monster?"

And the room was very still. And very quiet.

Except, that is, for the panicked breathing of Matt as Bonnie was forcibly restrained by Damon. Her eyes were full of demon madness and righteous anger, her fingers—tipped by trimmed and elegant nails—straining at the end of tendons which stretched and contorted all the way up her bare arms; she was reaching as far forward as she _possibly_ could. Damon noted that she would have done well in the attack, going for the eyes with one hand and the throat with the other. It was a pose he'd taught her after she'd accidentally (i.e. on purpose) killed a vampire hunter rather clumsily. She got points for an excellent form, but he had to dock her some for poor timing-it was B+ in his estimation.

_Bonnie_.

The sharp tang of fury answered his query.

* * *

 

 

Bonnie was going to kill something, she was on the verge of ripping one of Damon's arms off actually, and she wasn't going to wait much longer to do it. With a glare at their audience (Matt almost didn't count, he was going into shock), Damon wrenched her around to get a better grip around her waist as he carefully reached out to gather her arms up. Bonnie's head thrashed around wildly, contorted with rage. There wouldn't be any reasoning with her in this state, this was only going to be cleared up if she killed something.

"Damon, no, she shouldn't—" Elena's voice, plaintive and Stefan-luring, cut into his focus. She and Stefan were supporting Matt (whose eyes were rolled back in his head now), and it was obvious neither of them understood the gravity of the situation. Stefan at least had the stones to not flinch at the howls of fury Bonnie was unleashing on their ears.

Dragging his lady love out of the window would have been indelicate at best, and Bonnie was certainly not taking things the best. Although the lacerations were nothing compared to wounds he'd had over the centuries, Bonnie had blinded one of his eyes for the night with an errant (or was it?) nail to his face. His black clothing gleamed with devil-light in the streets, his blood shining a wet scarlet in dribbling patches from his throat to his shirt and jacket. The smell was waking up a bloodlust inside him which was normally under a tight control of regularity, and with a rueful smile he knew there would be death tonight.

* * *

After she'd drained half a family of vampire hunters dry, Bonnie came to her senses. Damon was neatly finishing up the other half—he sometimes found that the best way to make her smile was to vaguely appeal to some feminist notion of "halfsies" or whatever she chose to call it. A quiet "Shit," was all he got by way of notice that she'd calmed down. Her eyes, dancing and beautiful, shone out from her blushed face—she looked like a cherub.

"Damon?"

"Yes, Cara?" Her face was mournful and beautiful, her face gazing into that of her prey. The young man, barely finished with being gangly, had the startings of a beard to show his adulthood. Vampire hunters liked to differentiate like that. Bonnie's eyes were nearly closed, veiling herself from him and from her grief. She looked like Angelo's Pieta, Cupid's Bow mouth carefully neutral.

"I can't talk to them again after this. They think they get to decide who is a monster and who is not, when only God can decide that," the Catholic in Damon agreed with her. He didn't bother asking that Catholic why it agreed with her, but he suspected that it was because it was the Catholic in Bonnie who was saying such things. If Damon were a more forgiving person he would have countered her argument that they were only doing what they thought was right, and that the truth would out, as the case were. But he wasn't.

"Precious, tell me what to do." Bonnie looked up with her Mary's eyes in his. His dead heart ached for her: she'd wanted so badly for the planned reunion to rebuild bridges in disrepair, and he'd tried so hard to give that to her. Her eyes flicked down and away from his, focusing for a fleeting moment on the almost-man in her arms before she dropped him and gently picking up the youngest of the bunch. A girl, twelve at most, with springy black curls and a stubborn chin. Damon knew what she wanted, and, if it meant stepping on toes and damning himself further, he was going to do it.

It was against New World codes to change a human under the age of fourteen. There were no such codes in Europe, but that didn't mean it wasn't frowned upon to a murderous degree. Luckily for them, Damon was widely regarded as highly mentally unstable and few and far between were the vampires who would challenge his decisions. The girl was only just dead, her cheeks were still warm.

* * *


End file.
